Lights, camer... Whoa!!!! Easy on the lights!!! I think my shoes are melting.

Nothing lights up a Hillside event like a 1000 watt blast of light. Welcome to Hollywood, Hillside style. The Spectacular was the chronicle of all the great events taking place throughout the year. All events, no matter how small or big, usually got at least a few seconds of footage. And then there were the skits.

Filmed with a sound-less, old-fashioned 8mm camera, The Spectacular was a lot of fun as well as a challenge. The film required a lot of light, especially at night, therefore necessitating the powerful light. The infamous Caldor always had a supply of film as well as being a convenient place to develop it.

Every event was filmed but the most fun were the skits. Skits ranged from short, quick and dirty (often really dirty) to entire sagas, such as Tufts Man. Though definitely low-tech, the camera offered surprising flexibility - time-lapse, upside down and reverse were all features used frequently to make wild and crazy effects. In addition, other effects, such as laser beams and explosions, could be added at editing time by retouching the surface of the film itself.

The final product was put together in an one-and-all-night session, just hours prior to the Banquet, which naturally included pizza and beer. The film was cut and spliced, in more or less chronological order of events. Out of hours and hours of tape a final product, on the order of 1-2 hours, emerged. A sound track was created separately on a cassette deck. Though synchronization was always a problem, music always conveyed the mood of the action on the big screen. The Spectacular captured, forever in time, the essence of commuting.